Why do we hold double standards for drugs?

Alcohol and tobacco are terrible drugs. Alcohol in particular is basically a liquid benzodiazepine(a pill like Valium). It is also the one of the most physically addicting drugs seeing that the withdrawal can kill you. As opposed to opiate withdrawal which is just painful but you cannot die from it (though there have been a few extremely rare cases because they were either old or sick). I actually know a recovering alcoholic and a ex-heroin addict who basically told me he would choose heroin withdrawal over alcohol withdrawal any day. He was sent to the hospital multiple times while he was withdrawing from alcohol. While heroin is more psychologically addicting it is actually possible to live your life as a heroin addict if you have sanitary supplies and you actually know the dosage of heroin your taking. Most people don’t realize this but the health problems associated with heroin and other opiates are primarily due to cardiovascular infections that occur when using unsterilized needles and an unsterilized substance. The major health problem caused directly from heroin is…. constipation. Alcohol on the other will destroy your liver as well as your brain. Stimulants like amphetamine, nicotine, methamphetamine, cocaine, and caffeine are bad for your circulatory system and increase the risk of a heart attack. Methamphetamine may have a negative effect on the brain but nothing conclusive can be said yet. Cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine can give you psychosis in prolonged periods of use but it generally will go away after use has been stopped. Cocaine seems to do the most damage to the cardiovascular system than the other stimulants. But they are not very physically addicting when compared with opiates and depressants. Then next category is the most misunderstood group of drugs. The hallucinogens such as LSD, mescaline(primary psychoactive alkaloid in peyote), psilocybin(primary psychoactive alkaloid in mushrooms), and marijuana(although marijuana should be in a group of it’s own). The primary negative effect of LSD is HPPD. This is commonly referred to as a flashback. But those who I’ve spoken to that have experienced HPPD it isn’t very disruptive or problematic, also quite rare. LSD can also trigger schizophrenia if your family has a history of it, but it is usually thought that the schizophrenia was going to eventually show itself in that person anyways. LSD can give you a permatrip (permanent trip) if you take too much. But this can easily be avoided with education of dosage. Mescaline and psilocybin have not been known to cause a permatrip. Most people also don’t realize that there is a benefit to using hallucinogens. They can allow you think without bias and to see yourself as well as the world in ways like never before. Its finally time to talk about the perfect drug… marijuana. The reason I call it the perfect drug is because its negative effects are not profound. I realize a lot of people will shout lung cancer but there is a lot of debate as to whether it actually causes cancer because they are finally controlling for tobacco in marijuana cancer studies. I personally believe it does but it won’t increase your risk as much as tobacco will. This is because marijuana contains cannibidiol which has anti-tumoral properties. Also marijuana smoke has been noted to cause apoptosis in the lungs, thus DNA will degrade less. The smoke is also been noted to clear lungs and not penetrate as deeply as tobacco smoke. Even if it does cause lung cancer it doesn’t matter because it can easily be vaporized or baked into food which eliminates that argument completely. Marijuana doesn’t cause any permanent brain damage. It will however “slow” your brain down but this is temporary and fades once usage has stopped. Marijuana does effect driving but no where near as much alcohol does (alcohol also profoundly effects judgment and will cause someone to do something riskier, marijuana gives the user anxiety and they will be to afraid or paranoid to do something reckless). There is absolutely no reason why marijuana shouldn’t be legal while alcohol is legal. So I’ll ask the question: why do we hold double-standards for drugs?